airballoon Air Balloon's ( for late game )

[Voldemort]

I know it might be an unpopular suggestion, but I think it would be amazing to introduce some kind of air travel system, not involving airplanes or flying suits, but rather hot air balloons. It would bring a sense of old-fashioned, slow-paced travel around the world. The balloon's movement would be influenced by the wind and weather, with harsher conditions adding risk and danger to the journey. Building something like this would take time, so it could be a great late-game feature for players. Imagine traveling with a group of players inside a balloon across the wastelands—it would be an incredible experience!

Let me know what y'all think about this idea 

 

[Thorfinn]

I think that's a good start, but would love it if it played into the steampunk genre with steam/Jonas -powered  airships.

[LadyWYT]

Pretty much same general thoughts I've stated elsewhere: I don't love it, but I don't hate it either. I could see it being an option, albeit a somewhat niche one that to me is redundant since we have teleporters. But I can't honestly say that I'd say no to flying around for fun either; it'd actually be a super-useful building tool, now that I think about it. My main concern would be that flight renders the other methods of transport obsolete or unbalancing other parts of gameplay in other ways, as that has happened in other games.

1 hour ago, Adnyeus said:

Building something like this would take time, so it could be a great late-game feature for players. Imagine traveling with a group of players inside a balloon across the wastelands—it would be an incredible experience!

Ugh, I hate to say this, but given how much...colorful...commentary there has been on the travel methods that were literally just added to the game, I can only imagine what sort of salt mine adding flight might produce. Especially if it's both expensive, difficult to obtain, and slow. That being said, goofing around with friends in an air balloon sounds like a lot of fun the more I think about it(I can just imagine the friendly trolling opportunities among good friends!), and using it for building would be great.

So you know what, I think you've actually changed my mind on the idea, and I'm more inclined to support it. Though it's something I also expect to see made into a mod sooner or later.

[Thorfinn]

Oh, right. It should be a mod, and ideally a player mod. That would make it possible to have several different implementations and you could choose the one whose characteristics you like.

The vid someone ( @Brady_The?) posted of the boat going up the waterfall gives me a lot of confidence that the multi-block entities are capable of vertical control.

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, Thorfinn said:

The vid someone ( @Brady_The?) posted of the boat going up the waterfall gives me a lot of confidence that the multi-block entities are capable of vertical control.

I had completely forgotten about that!

[VSJohn]

I do love the idea. Definitely think it could be implemented in a balanced and interesting way as a late game transport option. Perhaps maybe a slower form of transport. However it would be a safe traversal method over both land and ocean. Potentially with the ability to transport an entity like the elk and several storage items.

[Deaderpan]

i think air travel via balloons could work since i dont see it as lore unfriendly, there are plenty of post apocalyptic stories where air transport becomes common since the ground is too dangerous.

but as mentioned it should be slow and expensive. i say it should primarily be used as a way to transport large amounts of resources from one place to another in a way they cant be automated.

and even tho the glider is already in the game, i dont want VS to fall victim to other block games elytra problem where one mode of transport makes all others irrelevant and kill off all further additions to other transportation methods from developers and has players on multiplayer be ***holes because they dont understand that maybe you dont want to use elytra to travel.

[Thorfinn]

I have no idea what an elytra problem is but it sounds like it must be as bad as a weekend of Montezuma's Revenge..

Yeah, ultimately, it's going to come down to balancing the existing means of travel. Building a road is a substantial investment in time and materials and only boosts movement by a third, and only if you are headed to the same place the road does. An even faster means of travel would have to have a proportionate expense and usability limits or you obviate the road system.

Re: heavy lift system, if done realistically, that's not too much of a risk- Kind of on the order of steam-powered fighter planes. You can't really lift enough high-energy fuel to make a hot air balloon effective for freight. But remember we've been promised carts, which will presumably be able to benefit from our road system. Hopefully they don't nerf carts by making you need a 2-wide path...

Edited January 11, 2025 by Thorfinn

[Deaderpan]

51 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

I have no idea what an elytra problem is but it sounds like it must be as bad as a weekend of Montezuma's Revenge..

Yeah, ultimately, it's going to come down to balancing the existing means of travel. Building a road is a substantial investment in time and materials and only boosts movement by a third, and only if you are headed to the same place the road does. An even faster means of travel would have to have a proportionate expense and usability limits or you obviate the road system.

Re: heavy lift system, if done realistically, that's not too much of a risk- Kind of on the order of steam-powered fighter planes. You can't really lift enough high-energy fuel to make a hot air balloon effective for freight. But remember we've been promised carts, which will presumably be able to benefit from our road system. Hopefully they don't nerf carts by making you need a 2-wide path...

elytra problem. its so fast, efficient and easy to obtain that it beats all other forms of transport meaning that players dont engage with them and mojang has no desire to build upon them. why build a minecart system to travel between bases when flying takes 1/4 of the time and shulker boxes make transporting with minecarts irrelevant even if modded. why get a horse and risk getting attacked or missing out on interesting landmarks if you can just fly over out of range of hostiles and see all land marks from the air and do it all three times as fast as a horse. end result players have no reason the engage with other transportation methods. so many times on different servers with different people they dont understand that im building a minecart system because its fun, not because im looking to speed run the game.

so conclusion, even tho air travel could fit the game, i dont want it to make every other form of travel irrelevant the way minecraft has done. i know people dont like comparing the two games, but i think no one wants VS to repeat a mistake the other game made

[Thorfinn]

Ah. Figured something like that. Which featured prominently in a recent nightmare I had. I dreamt that some people were proposing VS adopt a waterborne version of what I now know has a name -- the elytra problem. Think of it -- no roads or rails to build, truly massive hauling capacity relative to every other mode of transport, complete safety, and as fast or faster than overland.

Yes, I'd not want such a fate to befall VS.

[Voldemort]

yea

[Troa]

I would love to see a proper steampunk airship like a medium sized boat with a balloon above it a couple propellers a few sails and maybe a boiler.
If anyone knows of it like the airships from the Urza saga from MTG. Perhaps start with hot air balloons and work through the tech. I'm not familiar with the lore I'm still new to the game but it wouldn't feel that out of place from what I've seen.

[Cetasaya]

Bro.  Both ballons and airships would be insane.  Imagine a lore location be a crashed, abadoned, or populated freaking AIRSHIP!  A mobile base!  And powerful threats that can take it down.  That either needs to be repaired or populated by a group of quirky and strange NPCs or both!  And a crashed or piloted ballon would be the thing that leads you to the airship's location and you'd need to build your own balloon to reach it!

Steampunk is the next step and you cant have steampunk without airships and you cant have airships without balloons.  To balance it a bit, airships could be incredibly big, slow, loud, ect and take a LOOOOOOT of fuel (like an offensive amount cause duh of course it would), resources to build and repair, and can be stopped or grounded by barriers and special enemies.

This idea slaps.  And it slaps really hard.

Edited March 14, 2025 by Cetasaya

[Poxxs]

I say if they add balloons we also need airships. I miss the Minecraft mod that made it possible to build airships. Was really fun to just fly around, I imagine that Balloons would be a good middle game vehicle while airships would be late game. Coal of course being a fuel source. 

[Voldemort]

On 3/17/2025 at 3:35 AM, Poxxs said:

I say if they add balloons we also need airships. I miss the Minecraft mod that made it possible to build airships. Was really fun to just fly around, I imagine that Balloons would be a good middle game vehicle while airships would be late game. Coal of course being a fuel source. 

agree

[Dilan Rona]

On 1/9/2025 at 5:27 AM, Thorfinn said:

I think that's a good start, but would love it if it played into the steampunk genre with steam/Jonas -powered  airships.

 

On 1/9/2025 at 5:58 AM, Thorfinn said:

Oh, right. It should be a mod, and ideally a player mod. That would make it possible to have several different implementations and you could choose the one whose characteristics you like.

 

Take a look at ViesCraft Machines (https://mods.vintagestory.at/viescraftmachines). It works great.

[Voldemort]

On 5/1/2025 at 7:19 AM, Dilan Rona said:

 

Take a look at ViesCraft Machines (https://mods.vintagestory.at/viescraftmachines). It works great.

The reason not playing with mods is because mods come and go—just like mod developers. They often abandon their work.
Sometimes having mods is great, but in the long run, it's a waste. It's only a matter of time before they break or get abandoned.

[Evoken]

Air Balloon's could be such a nice addition to traveling system. But it should come with a high cost to not trivialize the traveling. Production could cost a lot of linen and flying ofcourse would need a lot of coal

[Voldemort]

2 minutes ago, Evoken said:

Air Balloon's could be such a nice addition to traveling system. But it should come with a high cost to not trivialize the traveling. Production could cost a lot of linen and flying ofcourse would need a lot of coal

yeah

[IamIamIam]

God this makes me wants zeplins in the game for late-late game. Then we have an epic zeplin drifter-dragon battle to save a village.